Design of an Optimised, Low Cost, Contactless Thermometer with Distance Compensation for Rapid Body Temperature Scanning

ABSTRACT

High temperature can be a symptom of various critical and semi-critical diseases. In the present COVID-19 pandemic, the demand for non contact based body temperature measurement devices are quite high. However, such devices are not only costlier than their contact based counterparts, but also their accuracy greatly depends on the distance and the location of the subject from the sensor (usually within 2–4 cm). To increase the accuracy of the measurement, researchers usually couple an ultrasonic sensor that can measure the distance of the object and instruct the sensor to take the reading only when the object is within the acceptable distance. However, the measurement of distance by the ultrasonic sensor depends on various aspects such as the impurities (such as sweat), location of the measurement area (forehead, hand etc.)and the initial distance. To overcome these limitations, the present work designed a low cost working prototype based on Arduino together with MLX90614ESF infrared temperature sensor and HC-SR04 ultrasonic sensor with an automatic distance correction mechanism for improved accuracy in temperature measurement. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.